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| Workers around 6-12 days old can produce wax scales in their four pairs of wax glands. The glands are concealed between the inter-segmental membranes, but the wax scales produced can be seen, usually even with naked eyes. The scales are thin and quite clear. After workers chew them up and add saliva, it becomes more whitish. Viewed: 3154 times. |
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| The digestive tract (intestine) of a worker bee, annotated. Viewed: 3101 times. |
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| Part of the digestive tract of a worker bee. The crop is missing for this one, but the midgut in on the top, connected to the hindgut (bottom) by the small intestine. Notice the rectum is filled with pollen and is quite large. This special feature allows each workers to stay inside a hive for 3 months or longer during winter, without defecation. Healthy workers never defecation inside the hive, they go out during a warm day (>55 F) during Feb or March. Viewed: 2770 times. |
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| Tracheal system (silver-looking networks) on the midgut of a worker. The tracheal tubes branches smaller and smaller untill it goes into indivudual cells directly to deliver oxygen. Viewed: 2061 times. |
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| The white dot near the end of the honey crop is the proventriculus. This device can function as a comb to remove pollen from nectar and also as a valve so no digested food even comes in contact with the nectar in the honey crop. Viewed: 2406 times. |
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| The proventriculus was opened to show teeth like structure that can be used to remove pollen and perhaps also grind up them. In grasshopper and other insects this is even more heavily scleritized for "chewing" the plant materials up. Viewed: 2502 times. |
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| A ganglium from a worker abdomen, with the small globule like bodies (white) in the background. These are fatbodies, which function as a liver in bees, mainly for energy storage and detoxification. Viewed: 2480 times. |
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| Two ganglia connected by the ventral nerve cord, which is actually two cords (one for each side), each abdomen would have one ganglia. Notice the abdomen muscle (used to control contraction and expansion of the abdomen), runing diagonally. Viewed: 2593 times. |
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| A worker, a drone, and a queen. All recently killed by freezing. The queen was laying eggs before sacrificed, as can be seen by her large abdomen. Viewed: 3762 times. |
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| Queen head and worker head, head to head. Can you tell which one is the head of a queen? They are nearly identical in size. Hint: shape of mandibles are different. Viewed: 3035 times. |
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Album: Anatomy & Morphology 
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